Even 48-year-old actor and Good Morning Britain host Adil is feeling the pinch as the UK lingers on the ‘precipice of a recession’, due to a combination of staff shortages, industrial disputes, the cost of living crisis and high interest rates.
The UK’s dire current economic straits have only been compounded for citizens by the rising cost of energy bills.
The wholesale prices (the price at which your energy supplier pays for gas and electricity) rocketed due to high demand after Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine cut off global supplies, and costs were offloaded onto customers.
Although Ofgem, the UK’s gas and electricity regulator, has claimed falling gas prices could bring energy costs down to under £3,000 this April – meaning prices might not soar to the alarming heights predicted last year – prices will still remain high, and volatile.
The Citizen Khan star spoke out about the crisis, tweeting: ‘Gas bill for January. £245! I live alone. Yes I can afford to pay but how are many coping? This is horrendous. Do we need to do more to help?’
He added that it cost ‘£684 for my pensioner parents. @OctopusEnergy yes 684 for 1 month staying warm’, to which the energy supplier replied and said they’d look into it.
The presenter, who has admitted to being overwhelmed with joy for contestants on his gameshow Lingo who win cash prizes, big or small, at this trying time, also admitted he needed to turn his radiators off more, after one person asked if he’s had the heating on a lot.
He said: ‘Think i need to turn off radiators that are used less!!’
Responses flooded in following Adil’s tweet, with many people sharing the steep prices of their own energy bills.
One said: ‘Gas bill for 6 week period I had was £745. Live with family and two cold snaps haven’t helped but something needs to be done ASAP.’
‘Absolutely more needs to be done. £359 a month here, people are struggling greatly,’ wrote another.
Meanwhile, one tweeter, who appears to live in Spain, was shocked: ‘Blimey! My electric bill for a month, 68 Euros. A gas butano/gas tank lasts months and cost -20 Euros, delivered to the door.’
The high prices are being felt by many, with one comment summing up the problem: ‘I used to pay £165 now £505’.
Another person, who like Adil lives alone, said his gas bill was even more at £353.
The government has already handed out £400 to every household in the UK to help with energy bills over the winter months, and also announced an Energy Price Guarantee, which limits the amount suppliers can charge households per unit of energy used.
This cap currently brings a typical household energy bill in the UK for gas and electricity down to around £2,500 per year.
On top of this, there will be further cost of living help worth up to £900, as was announced by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement, for eight million means-tested people, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
But those eligible must already be on some sort of benefits, including universal credit, income-based job seekers’ allowance, income-related employment and support allowance, income support, working tax credit, child tax credit and pension credit.
There is no specific help for those who live alone and shoulder the costs of heating their homes all on a single salary.
For those people, life is already expensive enough due to rent prices rocketing, with private rents now rising at the fastest rate for seven years.
In London, according to Spare Room – a flat-sharing website lots of people chose to use instead of forking out the cost of a place alone – 2022 rent prices jumped by a fifth from an average of £768 in 2021 to £935 per calendar month.
And that’s before bills.
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